The conscientious objector had a better case in almost all other wars than he has in this one. The modern pre-Hitler war had a superficial course something like this: The victor occupied the vanquished country, made a peace treaty, collected an indemnity, then withdrew to his own country with what loot he could carry. A part of the vanquished country might be annexed to the victor. The defeated nation smarted under the humiliation but in time the population resumed its ordinary life, and within a few years a stranger could hardly find signs of any change as a result of the loss of the war. A pacifist might argue that under these circumstances it would pay not to resist since the loss by fighting would be greater than the loss by nonresistance, considerable though that might be. This is not that kind of war. Hitler does not intend to restore the sovereignty of the nations he conquers. All Hitler’s wars are more or less Carthaginian. For as long as Hitler remains the master, his vanquished will be slave states, with their citizens chained to the Nazi machine, their women degraded, their religion persecuted, their schools closed, their books burned, and all this will continue until Hitler is overcome by force. It is not a choice between greater or lesser evils. It is a choice between life and death, for those who physically survive under the Hitler tyranny are condemned to a living death, as the Poles can testify. Most of the great pacifist leaders have been converted by their observation of Hitler. Albert Einstein was thought of as the world’s greatest pacifist, but he abandoned the doctrine of non-violence after only a few months spent under the Hitler regime before he escaped to America. On his way here Einstein passed through Belgium and in an interview published in a Brussels newspaper declared: “If I were a young Belgian today, I would not refuse military service.” From a man who all his life had been a militant pacifist, taking part in world campaigns against war, this statement ought to persuade any young man. Britain’s leading pacifist, Bertrand Russell, has likewise been persuaded to give up his “isolationism” and to advocate that we give up ours, because the airplane, annihilating distances, has made it impossible for any nation “to secure peace for itself by isolation.” But Hitler is more persuasive, it seems to me.